Voiceofreason01:Clinton is probably the best and most charismatic speaker we've had as president since JFK. The man's just plain good at it.

Obama is better. Their styles are very different, but I look forward to Obama's speeches more than Clinton's. As Matt Yglesias tweeted last night, Clinton is good, but keep in mind that Barack Obama is so good at formal political speeches that he won nomination on otherwise thin resume.

DamnYankees:Voiceofreason01: Clinton is probably the best and most charismatic speaker we've had as president since JFK. The man's just plain good at it.

Obama is better. Their styles are very different, but I look forward to Obama's speeches more than Clinton's. As Matt Yglesias tweeted last night, Clinton is good, but keep in mind that Barack Obama is so good at formal political speeches that he won nomination on otherwise thin resume.

Yes I love Obamas speeches! I'm a serious fanboy and I'll be making popcorn tonight for this one. (im really serious).

Also I wonder why the Republicans didn't bring out either of their X Presidents.. We can see what a positive impact having an X-President at a national convention has.

DamnYankees:As Matt Yglesias tweeted last night, Clinton is good, but keep in mind that Barack Obama is so good at formal political speeches that he won nomination on otherwise thin resume.

Not that I'm saying that's what's happened here, but this reminds me of something I've noticed recently. It's the practice of making a statement that is partially positive (Obama is so good) but includes and is partially based on a negative (thin resume). This allows you to get the negative accepted into the conversation without challenge.

Maybe it's an old tactic, but I've noticed it a lot in political discussions recently.

Using basic arithmetic skills, I am able to calculate computationally and derivate that Mr. Clinton "ad libbed," 53 percent of his speech. "Ad lib" is latin for "add lie," which means then that 53 percent of Mr. Clinton's speech was a lie. Since the legal definition of "fiction" is more than 50.5 percent lie, Mr. Clinton's speech must be classified as "fiction" and, in the future, only made available in that section of bookstores (online or brick/mortar). Furthermore, pursuant to various and sundry laws, since a candidate cannot be nominated on the merits of a fictional speech, Mr. Obama did not receive the Democratic nomination by midnight and therefore Mitt Romney is now the only legal candidate for president. Good job, Mr. Clinton, you ruined it.

Pocket Ninja:Using basic arithmetic skills, I am able to calculate computationally and derivate that Mr. Clinton "ad libbed," 53 percent of his speech. "Ad lib" is latin for "add lie," which means then that 53 percent of Mr. Clinton's speech was a lie. Since the legal definition of "fiction" is more than 50.5 percent lie, Mr. Clinton's speech must be classified as "fiction" and, in the future, only made available in that section of bookstores (online or brick/mortar). Furthermore, pursuant to various and sundry laws, since a candidate cannot be nominated on the merits of a fictional speech, Mr. Obama did not receive the Democratic nomination by midnight and therefore Mitt Romney is now the only legal candidate for president. Good job, Mr. Clinton, you ruined it.

Bontesla:DamnYankees: I don't even understand how that's possible. Maybe he wrote it all beforehand and just gave the media a fake version.

So, Clinton and speak circles around me. But, I always ad lib in front of a crowd because it allows me to connect and tailor my message.

Basically, I have a mental list of points I need to make and examples to illustrate each point. I think of it as "teaching" the audience.

The most people I've given a speech to would be around 3500 so nothing at like a giant stadium but once you've done over 100 people they're pretty much the same. On that 45 minute speech I had no teleprompter or presentation or anything, just me and a stage. Memorize the core points in the order you want to talk about them and then let your experience and expertise take over. Any upper level executive who talks to their employees would do this as well. In this case the product is politics and the competition is the Republicans. Teleprompters are tempting though because any "gaffe" in a political speech of this magnitude gets the attention of 100+ million people and stupid headlines to follow with the word Gaffe in them.

what would be the point of ad-libbing there? did he just suddenly remember a bunch of sh*t that he had forgotten to include in the text or was there a bunch of stuff that he couldn't get pre-approved by the convention handlers?

"OK, fine. I'm not going to say much. Among things I admire, almost near the top is creativeness, and everyone in this group has it. It shows in your work, it shows in your thinking, and it shows in your speech, what you do, what you write, what you say. "And it's one reason this group is so terrific. Bill Clinton has none of it. He has not a creative bone in his body. Therefore, he's a bore, and will always be a bore."

"The next four years will be filled with pretty words, and pretty music, and a lot of goddamn nonsense!"

thomps:what would be the point of ad-libbing there? did he just suddenly remember a bunch of sh*t that he had forgotten to include in the text or was there a bunch of stuff that he couldn't get pre-approved by the convention handlers?

thomps:what would be the point of ad-libbing there? did he just suddenly remember a bunch of sh*t that he had forgotten to include in the text or was there a bunch of stuff that he couldn't get pre-approved by the convention handlers?

Probably he wrote a speech to fit his allotted time, but decided at the last minute to make sure he talked about everything he wanted to mention, knowing nobody would stop him. Or, all the extra stuff was stuff he decided to add based on the speeches given right before his.

Or it was all planned to be a story in itself, since everyone knows Clinton can wing it like that.

thomps:what would be the point of ad-libbing there? did he just suddenly remember a bunch of sh*t that he had forgotten to include in the text or was there a bunch of stuff that he couldn't get pre-approved by the convention handlers?

My guess would be he had a set speech full of points he wanted to make, to strengthen the claim for Obama getting re-elected. Then the passion of what he was talking about took over, and he deviated from that set speech, going back and forth to cover everything he could possibly think to say.

Obama's a passionate, engaging public speaker, and so is Clinton. He could have stood up there another hour and kept right on going, and not only would no one try to play him off, the audience would be equally as enraptured at minute 100 as they were at minute 1. THAT is the mark of a great public speaker. If you can stand in front of 20,000 people and talk policy and numbers for nearly an hour, when it's past 11 p.m. and people want to go home, but they don't waver in their their rapt attention to every syllable that comes out of your mouth, you've got 'em. He could have started reading from Ulysses by James Joyce at that point, and people wouldn't have blinked.

I was 10 when Clinton was elected to his first term, so I wasn't old enough to vote for him, but I was starting to get into politics at that time, thanks to my dad, and I watched the convention that year and the convention in 1996 as well. At 10 and 14, ages when most kids could honestly give less than a rat's wet asshole about politics, I sat in front of the TV and listened to every word that came out of his mouth, even if I didn't have the firmest grasp on the policy issues he was talking about. That 1996 speech, which was a little over twice as long as the one he gave last night, was the only time I could remember prior to turning 16, that I was allowed to stay up that late on a school night.

I said in the gigantic mega thread last night that I had a raging girl boner for him, and it's totally true.

DamnYankees:mrshowrules: DamnYankees: I don't even understand how that's possible. Maybe he wrote it all beforehand and just gave the media a fake version.

How is it possible for people like Isaac Asimov to write scientific reference books from memory?

Wait, Asimov did what now?

He wrote almost 500 books. I'm guess over 300 were non-fiction and many scientific. A guide to the bible, a guide to Shakespeare and a good to modern scientists for instance. In many cases they are almost like text books and are used as reference material by academics. The books are known for how well they explain things but also their accuracy. The popular claim by many including Asimov himself is that he writes the books from memory of all the things he has already read. Clinton, like Asimov, is said to have a true photographic memory. I'm not sure if this is 100% true but no one would argue that their memory is farking incredible.

Pocket Ninja:Using basic arithmetic skills, I am able to calculate computationally and derivate that Mr. Clinton "ad libbed," 53 percent of his speech. "Ad lib" is latin for "add lie," which means then that 53 percent of Mr. Clinton's speech was a lie. Since the legal definition of "fiction" is more than 50.5 percent lie, Mr. Clinton's speech must be classified as "fiction" and, in the future, only made available in that section of bookstores (online or brick/mortar). Furthermore, pursuant to various and sundry laws, since a candidate cannot be nominated on the merits of a fictional speech, Mr. Obama did not receive the Democratic nomination by midnight and therefore Mitt Romney is now the only legal candidate for president. Good job, Mr. Clinton, you ruined it.

DamnYankees:Voiceofreason01: Clinton is probably the best and most charismatic speaker we've had as president since JFK. The man's just plain good at it.

Obama is better. Their styles are very different, but I look forward to Obama's speeches more than Clinton's. As Matt Yglesias tweeted last night, Clinton is good, but keep in mind that Barack Obama is so good at formal political speeches that he won nomination on otherwise thin resume.

Apples and oranges. They're both incredibly great speakers but do it in separate ways.

Rwa2play:DamnYankees: Voiceofreason01: Clinton is probably the best and most charismatic speaker we've had as president since JFK. The man's just plain good at it.

Obama is better. Their styles are very different, but I look forward to Obama's speeches more than Clinton's. As Matt Yglesias tweeted last night, Clinton is good, but keep in mind that Barack Obama is so good at formal political speeches that he won nomination on otherwise thin resume.

Apples and oranges. They're both incredibly great speakers but do it in separate ways.

I forget where I heard it last night, but they were arguing this point and said that "It's poetry verses prose. Clinton is prose - Obama is poetry."